One doesn't wait for a revolution. One becomes it.

—Carl Safina, The View from Lazy Point, 2012

Beware Buddhist drowsiness

MEDITATION

Mind sinks down to dantian
Spirit floats above the head

There is a foreign land within

資訊不等於知識
知識不等於智力
智力不等於智慧

Information is not knowledge
Knowledge is not intelligence
Intelligence is not wisdom

I am a little world made cunningly
Of Elements, and an Angelike spright

—John Donne

A passion for work

Estrangement from the mainstream

Practise like crazy : tap the Primal Well

Deep down inside what do we really desire? Death. The death of self or Ego certainly because that's the part of us that keeps us separate and ultimately unhappy, but also physical death because it's only then that the Ego truly is gone and the Spirit free.

When one keeps quiet, the situation becomes clear.

—Albert Camus

When I first came to Israel I tried psychotherapy. A few weeks in, my therapist (whom I admired) asked me to write a list of the five things that were most important to me. 

"Like what?"

"Like happiness, money, family..."

So I sat for quite a while thinking & compiling. 

When I had finished I handed her the list. 

"Now this is very interesting," she said, "Number one is Softness and number two is Intimacy, and here you are in a country where you are not going to find either..."

Once, wallowing in the doldrums, I asked my teacher why, despite all my work, I was making such little progress. He replied: Because you're resisting the teaching with all your might.

touching & moving

When someone you know passes mildly away, after a good, long life, it is no time for mourning. Just sit quietly, close your eyes, and remember their spirit. Its lightness & sparkle, humour & mischief, and you'll feel that spirit now soaring free.

Not a state, of affairs or otherwise, but an ongoing process. 

Not an object, discrete or otherwise, but a bundle of connexions.

So let us melt and make no noise…

No matter what the age declares of itself, no matter how absent of spiritual truth and tendency you operate, there is beneath the loquacious level that your rationalism inhabits a deeper level to your nature where intuitions and occult convolutions gather and where, even deeper, a darkness emanates the material of creation. It’s poetry that narrates and demonstrates that dark energy, an unconsuming fire in which our imaginations come most intensely to life.

—Peter O'Leary, Thick & Dazzling Darkness: Religious Poetry in a Secular Age, 2017

It's not what you do with your body that makes it qigong but what you do with your mind.

The most important thing in life is to go beyond where your talent takes you. This requires grace.

Depression is an excess of gravity / lack of levity.

Madness is an excess of levity / lack of gravity.

Turning allows us to give and take simultaneously. This is yielding.

Distraction & depression – the chief conditions of our time. (They are related.)

Let the Taiji carry you away. Otherwise you're going through the motions.

The teacher provides a Form.

We provide the content.

Softness is natural – of nature and of our nature – our natural mind. Ego, being an unnatural man-made construct, is never really soft, though it is good at pretending (lying).

If you so wish you can become aflame.

—Abba Joseph of Panephysis

Look softly – eyes unfocus and swivel inward.

G O D  I S  L O V E

L O V E  I S  G I V I N G

(great mantras)

The letting go of certainties.

Just stay in awareness. 

—Sheng Yen

Draw the world into the belly, and issue your energy from the belly. 

(Belly as place of rumination & digestion but also of silent knowledge, intuition, wisdom.)

There is a saying in Taiji: It never gets any easier. This is because when you practice daily, with faith, sincerity & courage, that practice naturally homes in on your weak points, and these are always difficult to face.

Each time we meditate we are presented with a clear choice: head or heart, hard or soft, tense or relaxed, fear or love.

Ego is where we hide from God.

The mind is usually centred, grounded, rooted in a sense of self – a separateness from the world – from which it inevitably regards and judges that world. This centre (Ego) appears firm, stable and real but only because the mind is constantly reinforcing it with its endless chatter. During meditation we allow the mind to quieten & soften, and then Ego can be seen for what it is – a man-made construct with no analogue in Nature.

Ego is our pact with Satan.

The easiest way to steal someone's energy is to coax them to your rhythm, to your time.

My favorite tool is my own hand, an extension of my body. It is a tool shaped by time and experience, refined through years of practice.

—Kwak Kyung-Tae

Like a tiger on the prowl, carefully picking its way through the undergrowth, ready to pounce at any moment.

The most important relationship we have in life is the one with God. This regulates all the others.

What attracted me to Taiji was its revolutionary aspect – it promised (threatened) change and freedom. Revolution – upturn – overthrow of the ultimate tyrant – Ego.

God's face is what we see when we awaken from the solipsism of self.

When we talk of freedom it is always freedom from self, never freedom of self.

It's not what you see but the intensity of the seeing.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked; it has no choice. It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

—Franz Kafka, The Zürau Aphorisms, 1919

on-the-spur-of-the-moment

The best experiences are those we can't talk about.

The cure for pain is in the pain.

—Rumi

A body always ready to push beyond its limits.

A mind always ready to think the unthinkable.

A spirit always ready to make a mad dash for freedom.

Pay attention. The price of admission in this wonderful adventure called life.

The bourgeoisie feel entitled to anything & everything, but especially shortcuts.

The only way to change is through discipline. In other words: practice.

We are at our very best the moment—for whatever reason—the heart leaps free.

A lust for life—pure—without the trappings.